World War II - 80 Years On

[PwrdOn]

I'm having trouble finding reliable sources, but I was previously told that there were supposedly a considerable amount of Germans who were visited by Nazi officials at their homes and ordered them to join the German army, if they didn't join, they would kill them and their families. To my understanding, there were also a considerable number of German soldiers who only fought on the battlefield and never even set foot inside the concentration camps to help slaughter the Jews, and if at some point a German soldier who previously didn't know later found out about the core horror of the camps after they had joined, and proceeded to resist and leave, the Nazis would kill said soldier since they were that malicious.

Again, I'm having trouble finding reliable sources and evidence on this, so I'm not sure what are the most reliable sources out there.

I'm sure that the Nazis used plenty of coercion to find warm bodies for the front lines, but from most of the available accounts, German soldiers were for the most part fully on board with the Nazi ideology and only distanced themselves from Hitler after they started losing battles. The army was perfectly happy to comply with all of Hitler's orders when things were going well for them, but after the tide had turned they needed a scapegoat to explain why they were getting whipped so badly.

[Electricmastro]

I'm sure that the Nazis used plenty of coercion to find warm bodies for the front lines, but from most of the available accounts, German soldiers were for the most part fully on board with the Nazi ideology and only distanced themselves from Hitler after they started losing battles. The army was perfectly happy to comply with all of Hitler's orders when things were going well for them, but after the tide had turned they needed a scapegoat to explain why they were getting whipped so badly.

That too from the written accounts we do have. There were certainly many who harbored antisemitic views long before World War II, as not all antisemitics have worn swastikas after all. From Jews getting blamed for the crucifixion of Jesus, to Jews getting slaughtered in the 1096 Crusade, to Jews getting blamed for the plague in the Black Death in the 14th century, to Martin Luther being embittered by his failure to convert Jews to Christianity and becoming outspokenly antisemitic in his statements and writings in the 16th century, to pseudo-scientific racism that viewed Jews as a race whose members were locked in mortal combat with the Aryan race for world domination, to accusations of Jews orchestrating Germany's surrender in World War I, and so on and so forth.

Antisemitism still exists worldwide in 2019 of course, but I'm glad the internet and other forms of such communication have common along so that healthy, well-intentioned views are able to spread more so that it can result in there being less people who are... well, jerks.

Basically, this world doesn't need more bad, hurtful behavior. It needs more kind, productive behavior.

[jetengine]

Anti semetism was fairly common prior to ww2 and afaik the average Whermact member was more likely in it for a job and a way to feed his family.

[James T. Kirk]

September 3, 1939, from Wikipedia,

"France, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia declare war on Germany after the invasion of Poland, forming the Allies."

"The United Kingdom and France begin a naval blockade of Germany that lasts until the end of the war. This also marks the beginning of the Battle of the Atlantic."

[DrNewGod]

26 April 1937 Aerial bombing of Spanish civilians in the town of Guernica, carried out by the Nazi German Luftwaffe's Condor Legion and the Fascist Italian Aviazione Legionaria, at the behest of Francisco Franco's Nationalist faction, under the code name 'Operation Rügen'.

1937 - The United States chose to maintain strict neutrality and passed laws to support this official policy in regard to Spain. This response was controversial. A few American men and women were so compelled by the danger of Fascism in Europe, and the immediate threat to the Spanish Republic, that they chose to defy these laws.

The Lincoln Battalion, Americans volunteers arrived in Spain as part of the XV International Brigade, served in the Spanish Civil War as soldiers, technicians, medical personnel and aviators fighting for Spanish Republican forces against the Nazi backed forces of General Francisco Franco and his Nationalist faction.
The volunteer Lincoln Brigade was the first American military force to include blacks and whites, the first integrated army in American history.
The U.S gov did not officially recognize them.

The FBI actively refused to approve security clearances for the Lincoln Brigade's veterans, which meant the could not hold many US military positions, and could not be commissioned as officers.

[James T. Kirk]

September 4, 1939, from Wikipedia,

"William J. Murphy commands the first Royal Air Force attack on Germany."

[The Whovian]

Look at Britain or America

Agreed. However, the German example was done in modern times where people knew openly about what was being done. And in great numbers.

Not excusing Britain or America, just pointing out the differences. Don't get me started on America and their treatment of Native American Indians.

[Electricmastro]

Agreed. However, the German example was done in modern times where people knew openly about what was being done. And in great numbers.

Not excusing Britain or America, just pointing out the differences. Don't get me started on America and their treatment of Native American Indians.

Commanding, conquering, and the suffering of those below so that later generations may enjoy the fruits of their labor is pretty much the track record for the establishment of every big, long-lasting civilization, from the Egyptian Empire to the British Empire, and America is most definitely part of that complete picture. Not that this is exclusive to America of course, but perhaps one of the longest running problems America has is the scapegoating of groups perceived to be the problem.

Whether it's Native Americans, black people, Salem "witches," Catholics, Jewish people, Japanese people, Communists, gay people, Muslim people, or Mexican immigrants, if a group is perceived as enough of a threat and those that are angry are compelled to take drastic action, then there inevitably leads to much suffering, to the point that evidence and the truth doesn't even manner. Mark Stein wrote a book that explores this sort of idea actually.

[The Whovian]

Commanding, conquering, and the suffering of those below so that later generations may enjoy the fruits of their labor is pretty much the track record for the establishment of every big, long-lasting civilization, from the Egyptian Empire to the British Empire, and America is most definitely part of that complete picture. Not that this is exclusive to America of course, but perhaps one of the longest running problems America has is the scapegoating of groups perceived to be the problem.

Agreed. I believe we both hold the same thoughts on this discussion Electricmastro. I just don't like it when people say the USA has never done anything bad. I feel like saying "do you know your history or just in denial?". Yes, the USA is a great country NOW, but it wasn't always that way. And in case anyone wants to slam me for not being patriotic, I served in the military from 89-94. I just don't stick my head in the sand and pretend that the USA isn't something that it is.

[Jim Kelly]

It's also worth remembering that the term "World War I" didn't get used until we had World War II.

The first conflict was often referred to as "The Great War", but that wasn't because it was a fun war. "Great" referred to the fact that it was "notably large in size".

I was watching something from the 1930s not long ago--but I don't remember what it was now--where they in fact referred to the World War, meaning the first one, so this must have been another term that was in common usage back then.

Canada declared war on Nazi Germany on September 10, 1939. Our parliament was out of session when the U.K. declared war on September 3, so parliament had to be recalled to get legislative approval for the government to pass its own declaration of war--the document was given to King George VI for his signature.

Canada actually declared war on Japan the evening of December 7, 1941--before the U.S. and the U.K. did the same on December 8.

As a result of being in the war, Canada's economy took a hit and they had to conserve dollars, in light of a trade deficit with the U.S., so in December of 1940 they passed the War Exchange Conservation Act that restricted trade with countries outside the sterling bloc. Thus American comic books no longer were available in Canada and a homegrown comic book industry came into being for the duration of the war.

[Rob Allen]

The compliance of the German people can be partially explained by the widespread popularity of this man's ideas in the century prior to WWII:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moritz_Schreber

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisonous_pedagogy

[abulafia]

I'm having trouble finding reliable sources, but I was previously told that there were supposedly a considerable amount of Germans who were visited by Nazi officials at their homes and ordered them to join the German army, if they didn't join, they would kill them and their families. To my understanding, there were also a considerable number of German soldiers who only fought on the battlefield and never even set foot inside the concentration camps to help slaughter the Jews, and if at some point a German soldier who previously didn't know later found out about the core horror of the camps after they had joined, and proceeded to resist and leave, the Nazis would kill said soldier since they were that malicious.

Again, I'm having trouble finding reliable sources and evidence on this, so I'm not sure what are the most reliable sources out there.



Thanks!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissar_Order

Nazi propaganda presented Barbarossa as an ideological-racial war between German National Socialism and "Judeo-Bolshevism," dehumanising the Soviet enemy as a force of Slavic Untermensch (sub-humans) and "Asiatic" savages engaging in "barbaric Asiatic fighting methods" commanded by evil Jewish commissars to whom German troops were to grant no mercy.[11] The vast majority of the Wehrmacht officers and soldiers tended to regard the war in Nazi terms, seeing their Soviet opponents as sub-human.[12]

The enforcement of the Commissar Order led to thousands of executions.[13] The German historian Jürgen Förster wrote in 1989 that it was simply not true that the Commissar Order was not enforced, as most German Army commanders claimed in their memoirs and some German historians like Ernst Nolte were still claiming.[13] Every German general enforced the Commissar Order. Erich von Manstein passed on the Commissar Order to his subordinates, who executed all the captured commissars, something that he was convicted of by a British court in 1949.[14] After the war, Manstein lied about disobeying the Commissar Order, saying he had been opposed to the order, and never enforced it.[14] On 23 September 1941, after several Wehrmacht commanders had asked for the order to be softened as a way of encouraging the Red Army to surrender, Hitler declined "any modification of the existing orders regarding the treatment of political commissars."

[Jim Kelly]

Read ANNE FRANK (2010) by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón, a heart-wrenching read. It shows just how slowly but surely the extreme demands of the Nazi regime took over Europe--step by step, inch by inch, from what seemed almost reasonable (as reasonable as the demands put on immigrants and refugees of today) until the most obscene acts of hatred and terror became normalized.

[Electricmastro]

Anti semetism was fairly common prior to ww2 and afaik the average Whermact member was more likely in it for a job and a way to feed his family.

It also came to my attention that further adding fuel to the fire was the Hitler Youth, which promoted the idea that the Jews were the enemy and responsible for Germany's previous defeat in the First World War, as well as societal decline:

It's unfortunate stuff like this which reminds me that hatred towards others most certainly shouldn't be taught to children, and everyone should be responsible when educating children, to say the least.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Youth

[The Whovian]

It also came to my attention that further adding fuel to the fire was the Hitler Youth, which promoted the idea that the Jews were the enemy and responsible for Germany's previous defeat in the First World War, as well as societal decline:

It's unfortunate stuff like this which reminds me that hatred towards others most certainly shouldn't be taught to children, and everyone should be responsible when educating children, to say the least.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Youth

This is so sad. It really ticks me off when adults use children to further their ignorance and hatred.